Know how

The re-release of icons has been made possible only a wealth of experience.

This means reconnecting and reactivating various human and technical links in a correct way. Among these, to reproduce, in the sense of producing anew, lamps from back then. After the approval of the disigners, the first problem, was to find the original models.But, in the end, through the help of generous friends and designers who had held onto some samples from the first production lines and companies who rent out the last remaining originals, we were able to complete our collection. In order to understand correctly as to how to proceed, it was of fundamental importance to interview the creators, who talked about the history of each single object and about whether there were any compromises between the original idea and finished product.

We had to take the lamps and all components apart, analyze them in order to see what methods were used to build them, and in each piece we discovered the justifying logic for each choice made. The history of modern lighting passes through the people and companies who made these products and brought on their evolution.

The italian "workshop" from fifty years ago had production chains that nowadays are only rarely used. Successive technological innovations provided designers and companies with new ideas for previously impractical forms. Innovative machinery with an unbelievable reduction in costs made it possible to use new materials and new and more efficient working methods in order to make components that had never been used before because they were considered too costly. An analysis of the lamps from back then and their components was a bit like getting a glimpse of those hills where time has worn away the layers of the earth and underlying rock.

It was a true and proper archeaological investigation, a freeze frame of the evolution of Italian industry after the war through to today. The present new norms regarding the use of electrical components or, more simply, the disappearance of some light bulbs which have made it necessary for us to rethink some of the details of these lamps that are part of the history of design. Inevitable operations that will, however, not change the marvelous aesthetics of these authentic masterpieces. We will not stop here.

Stilnovo takes up the same path: it is only a passing on of tradition.